Utilities and other industries face a common problem of acquiring data from numerous remote points and communicating the data to a data processing center for analysis, billing, and other purposes. A typical example is a natural gas utility company that provides natural gas for a variety of domestic, commercial and industrial purposes. The natural gas utility company may have thousands or even millions of customer gas meters that must be regularly read to gather data for billing and other purposes. The data has traditionally been gathered by means of a human meter reader who goes from meter to meter and records each meter's reading. The recorded data is then returned to a central office and transferred to a computerized billing system. Other examples of utilities having similar problems are electric and water utilities.
Improvements in consumption data gathering procedures have been made over the years, but most systems still rely on human meter readers. Changes in lifestyles and societal conditions, however, have made it increasingly difficult for meter readers to gain access to domestic premises for meter reading. It is therefore an object of the invention to eliminate the need for human meter readers by automating the meter reading process.